SEASONS

Years are marked by time and the shift of seasons as the Earth travels around the sun. On a cold dark February evening, I look at vibrant color palettes I created on a summer day sitting on a rock in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and I can almost feel the warmth and light of that moment.

Each season has its own colors, and places have their own seasons. Making seasonal color palettes encourages you to consider time in a different way—in rotations around the sun rather than around the clock.

Above: Peak fall foliage in the Wisconsin woods.

Right: Spring hillside at Point Reyes.

PRACTICE

•Immerse yourself in one season. What are the colors that come to life in this season, in this light? Are colors brightening or fading? Every few days or weeks, make a palette of a scene or object that speaks to you of this season. It could be a bright new apple in fall, the view out your window in winter, or the sharp green growth of spring.

•Track a year in color, creating a color palette for each season. When you’re done, look at the palettes together: How did the colors change with the seasons and the different effects of weather and intensities of light? What colors emerged in each new season as flowers bloomed and faded, grasses grew and died, snow or rain came and went?

SEASONS: A YEAR IN COLOR

As an experiment, I decided to chart the colors of the specific landscape of Point Reyes over a period of a year to see what I might learn. I asked myself, How do colors change with the seasons and with the different effects of weather and intensities of light? What are the color relationships in the spring, when the hills are blanketed with the intense velvet green of new growth? Or in January, when the rising ocean mists and clear nights illuminate the hibernating grassland? What colors emerge from the parade of wildflowers? How are the colors of this place different from those of other places?

CHAPTER FOUR

World Color: Travel Journeys

As I’ve traveled the world, I’ve come to realize that I can take the process of observing place with me wherever I go. I slow down and become receptive to what I see, hear, and smell. In each location I visit, I wonder, what is the spirit of this place? And whether I am painting in my own backyard, on the edge of the ocean, in a small pueblo in Mexico, in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, or in a corner of Portland, Oregon, I find that the active process of observing color and creating color palettes grounds me and allows me to engage with each unique place in a more substantial way.